Skiing Lessons Relate to Dog Lessons-Day 2 Vacation

I was able to leave the dogs today to attend my lesson and ski.   I am not overly protective of my dogs, but a health issue happened that I will get into on another post.   In the meantime, an epithany came to me regarding my ski lessons.

In my ski lessons, I am the paying customer.   Each year I pay an instructor named Jose (pictures to follow at a later date) to tell me where my skills improve, to boss me around while practicing those skills, and to select the best terrain to challenge my skills.   Often on the other side of this relationship, I think "if only my these nice people would hold the leash correctly, or walk straight in a way the dog understands, or hold their right hand with the leash straight by their side instead of floating"...If only they would do that, their homework and training would flow so much better.   Often, I am just happy they have done their homework, and we can fix out the kinks anyway.   The most important part is that the homework is done, but I wish people would realize that those other minute things, and committing them to their motion memory is equally as important.   Imagine the decrease in frustration and stress this would cause.

However, it took me many years (not weeks) to begin to learn this lesson myself:)   I resolved to implement and focus on my lesson today.   There is a reason that Jose tells me to lean on the tongue of my ski boots, to face the way my skis are going rather than up hill, to put my body weight downwards not upwards of the mountain, to plant my poles on the steep terrain turns, to stop looking at my skis and watch the tracks ahead of him, and to stay in his tracks so he knows I am doing well.   At the end of the lesson, I felt that I had accomplished more in any other lesson.   My mind was whirring with the information, and I was fighting the wrong motion memory in my body.   At the end, I had begun the reprogramming process, and I lasted three hours on some of the steeper terrain that I had done in the past.

Yeah me.   Remember there is a reason that you are told to do things a certain way.  In the end it's not only for the success of an inter species relationship, but everyone's safety as well.

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